Who: Bucky, Natasha (Backstory Thread!) Where: The Capitol When: A few days before Bucky goes into the Arena What: Bucky and Natasha have a brief meeting he won't remember later.
Every second of every day since they'd called his name and changed his whole world, Bucky had people managing him. He barely had time to breathe or think or take in what had happened to him without something plucking at his eyebrows or smearing mascara on his lashes, or coaching him what to say and how to sit, reminding him to smile.
And if it wasn't that, it was training. Bucky knew it was probably stupid - the training was the part where you got a look at all the ways the people around you were going to try to kill you, or you had to kill them. But it was actually the easiest part. He wasn't like the kids from 1 or 2, didn't know his way around all the weapons or how to tie a half dozen kinds of knots. But Bucky had always been strong and smart, an easy kind of athlete, and he learned fast. Training was a simpler thing to push himself into. It was a set goal. Watch to see what they know, and learn how to do this. He could apply himself to that, push through and measure the results on his own to know that yeah, he was pretty good with the knives and he'd always had good aim with anything he tried. He could heft the heavy weapons and climbing wasn't that hard once he tried. Easy to mark success and failure. (Swords were shit, axes were better, bows were useless to him.)
The rest of it ... Bucky couldn't really know. He did what Tony told him to do, and Bucky had never been bad at charming people into liking him. Hell, he'd spent most of his childhood trying to get people to come around and not be pissed off after one thing or another Steve had gotten tangled up in trying to help someone or hit back against someone picking on him. (Not that Bucky hadn't gotten into his share too - but he'd always been better at not getting noticed when he did. Steve didn't have the knack, and Bucky wasn't about to let him take his hits alone.) But how did you know if people liked you enough to want to keep you alive? How did you make yourself more valuable than anyone else who wanted to live? They hadn't had a Victor in 8 since Erskine. Bucky knew the odds. He'd known the second they said his name that this was probably a one way trip. It didn't mean he wasn't going to try like hell to do what he could to get home. Bucky wished ...
He wished a lot of things. That it hadn't been his name, selfish as that was. But he wished he could have had more time. That he could have said goodbye to Steve. That they hadn't dressed him up in what looked like a half see through carpet for the parade. That the girl here with him was older, and less afraid, so they could work together. But she was only just 12, in her first year, and small and silent. She disappeared next to him and Bucky knew she wouldn't last. The bloodbath would take her out. She knew it too, he saw it in her face. Bucky had tried to talk to her, but it hadn't really gone anywhere. He wanted to say he'd look after her ... but she wouldn't believe him, and Bucky didn't know if he'd be able to. It was going to be hard enough just keeping himself alive, how the hell was he going to help a 12 year old who stood in training every day, looking blank and shaking?
Tomorrow was the interview, and Bucky had spent hours already with Peggy and Tony. Even Erskine had offered a few words (the first advice he'd really given, and it had just been a warning that Bucky didn't fully understand, but took to heart anyway). He had it all drilled into his head. Smile, be charming, talk about your family, flirt. It was a lot different than just trying to get a girl to let him take her out for a night, but Bucky thought he could manage. He'd watched enough of the damn things over the years. He at least knew how it went, what made people tear up or applaud or laugh. He told decent stories. He could do it.
He was scared shitless, but he could do it.
Bucky was almost shocked when after the prep and before it was late enough that he had to sleep, he got a few minutes alone, and no one ushering him off to his room. There were hovering Avox (who made him uneasy with their silence and always-ready hands to help and serve when he just wanted to do it himself and tell them it was fine, just sit), but they didn't try to direct him at all. Tony had gotten called off to some party with potential Sponsors, Bucky thought, and Peggy ... maybe she'd just given him a minute alone.
Bucky had never had all that high opinion of the Capitol, but he liked Peggy. It didn't hurt that she was a knockout.
He was pretty sure he was supposed to stick inside, on his floor, but ... what were they going to do to him, Bucky reasoned. They were already sending him off to probably die. So he ignored that and took the elevator down to the gardens downstairs. He'd been down there once, when they had breakfast out there and practiced interview answers before he went for the day's training. It was different at night though - all shadowed and soft, light up by colored lights that drifted through flowers.
Pretty, Bucky supposed. But in the back of his mind, he always just looked and saw expensive and wanted to scoff. There was a bench tucked up next to a bush of some kind of flower Bucky didn't recognize, out of the way and hard to spot. Bucky headed for it, then dropped down, reveling in the relative quiet and freedom from people pushing and pulling and prodding.
He started at a flicker of movement from the other side of the flower bush, but didn't move. Someone catching him probably just meant a slap on the wrist - he hadn't learned to see danger in every movement yet. It wasn't Peggy, come to find him, or an apologetic but quiet Avox or anyone else he expected. Even in the odd, distorted, shadow-light, Bucky recognized the bright hair first. Natasha Romanoff. He knew her. Everyone knew her. He blinked, a little dumbstruck. "Sorry ... didn't see anyone over here."